There’s a disturbing trend Cockburn has noticed lately that involves men d’un certain âge being inappropriately ripped. We’re not talking about the darling geriatric mall-walkers taking laps for their heart health; Cockburn is referring to the Jeff Bezoses (Bezii?) and the RFK Jrs. and the Sylvester Stallones of the world who are buffer than their aged bones might naturally allow.
For starters, when you see Jeff Bezos’s fifty-nine-year-old “muscular physique” as he climbs aboard his “$500 million superyacht,” admit it: you’re disturbed. Before his billions, Bezos was a skinny nerd with the brawn of a wet spaghetti noodle. Now, Bezos’s head and face look like Elmer Fudd, but his shirtless torso looks like one of the extras from the Top Gun: Maverick beach volleyball scene. It does not compute. Mr. Potato Head’s got nothing on these buff grandpas.
Then there’s RFK Jr. He may not believe much in vaccines, but his popping pecs and bulging biceps lead Cockburn to wonder if he might not be into other types of injectables (he denies being on steroids, but admits to testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT). The man will be seventy next year, but if you take his gray hair and saggy skin out of the picture, you’d be convinced he’s half that age.
Sly — well, he is Rocky, after all, and as Rambo too he spent a great deal of time over the years shirtless on the big screen. It’s hard to teach seventy-seven-year-old men new tricks, so Cockburn is willing to cut Stallone some slack. But still, even if you’ve managed to maintain a “knockout body” well past middle age, there’s only so much collagen replacement therapy can do to keep the skin on your back from drooping the way of Joe Biden’s approval numbers.
Take it from Cockburn: younger women do not seek out older men for their rockin’ bods, and the fact that these geezers are pumping themselves full of testosterone and spending so much time in the gym implies that they’re compensating. If you weren’t swole when you were young and your body was actually in muscle-making mode, over-doing it now looks a little…weak. The ladies look to older guys for wisdom, charm and, uh, let’s call it business acumen. If, after fifty-five-plus years, you’re relying on your bench press rather than your bank account number or cultivated, worldly mind to woo, you’ve done something wrong.
Speaking of a cultivated, wise mind, Cockburn wonders at these men not realizing what Cockburn himself — to some extent, anyway — and Cephalus from Plato’s Republic understand about getting older: that it brings “great peace and freedom from passions.”
For his money, Cockburn would rather skip the gym, TRT side effects — including strange looks from pool-goers and moobs — and preserve himself gracefully, the best way he knows how: with a glass germ- and mold-killing alcohol and some smoke, both known for their preservative effects.
